Picture Perfect
by jazznsmoke
Summary: His heart kept reaching for the image of the blonde. He stayed there on his knees, fighting waves of warring emotions, kneeling on the floor in front of Hershel, the picture of a tortured man. One-shot turned multi-chapter.
1. Chapter 1

Lori's memory had been haunting Rick since the night she died while bringing their daughter into the world. Everywhere he went he saw her ghost. For a month he barely interacted with the group; instead choosing to spend his time in the tombs, the boiler room to be exact, with his memories. Three weeks into his self-exile Hershel came to him down in the tombs.

"Son, I know you're grieving. I know you aren't at your best mentally. Beth needs you. She won't say a word but we all know the toll it's taking on her to care for your daughter on her own. We all try to help but we can only do so much. I need you to step up." Hershel's voice was kind and firm. It was the prod Rick needed to see the light to bring him back from the brink of madness. That night his dreams began to change.

Rick walked into the make shift kitchen area and stopped in his tracks. Standing at the sink is Lori, wearing blue jeans and an army green tank top, washing dishes. She looked up when he entered the room and gave him a soft smile. He heard someone call his name and he turned around to see who. He didn't see anyone so he turned back to his wife, except, it's no longer Lori standing there, but Beth holding his infant daughter in her arms.

He had the same dream every night for a week. The following week the dream changed again. This time it's only Beth and his daughter he sees and Beth always smiles at him. By the third week the dream includes Carl, standing there with Beth and the baby.

Day by day Rick began to spend more time with his daughter and Beth, reinserting himself in to the group.

Every day he began to notice things about Beth that he chided himself for seeing, like the way her ass looked in her sleeping shorts and how beautiful she looked holding his daughter, or how blue her eyes are and the way they light up when she's happy about something. He told himself that it's wrong and she's to young for him to think about, to want. He felt guilty, too.

Months went by and he spent more and more time with Beth. He found himself spending more time with her than just when she had his daughter, which granted, was most of the time. She had become the primary caregiver of her- a job she insisted wasn't a hardship but a joy.

On the nights he kept Judith with him he would often wake up to find Beth sitting near her make shift crib, half asleep. He didn't question it until the third night he woke up to find her there, half asleep on the floor. "Why ya down there?" He asked, running his hand over his face to erase the sleep from his eyes.

"Can't sleep when she isn't with me," She admitted sheepishly.

"C'mon, no need to sleep on the floor. Ya should have told me." He admonished, as he scooted so his back was against the wall and lifted the edge of the blanket up to invite her in. He didn't allow himself to think about what he was doing, he just did it. She studied him for a second before getting up and padding over. She laid down, back to him. They didn't talk again. Beth fell asleep moments after lying down. Rick fell back to sleep moments later, in the most restful sleep he's had in months.

He woke up with his arms wrapped around the blonde snuggled against him. He carefully disentangled himself, careful to not wake her, before going down to the common area. He tamped down the guilt he felt over having her wrapped in his arms moments before. He had to fight not to turn tail and run when Hershel came hobbling into the room. He forced himself to push the guilt aside and behave normally. He ate breakfast and discussed the daily problems they faced and getting to know the folks from Woodbury. He found his eyes drawn to Beth as she walked in, carrying his cranky daughter. He excused himself away from the discussion and walked over to them. Beth turned a light shade of pink when she realized he was coming over to her. He found it oddly endearing.

"She's cranky this morning." Beth explained, offering her to her father. He took her, bouncing her in his arms, cooing and talking to her. She calmed down almost immediately. "She just wanted her daddy," She smiled softly.

"I've got her for awhile. Go'n eat. I'll bring her to ya."

Rick had Judith again that night, and he hadn't seen Beth since lunch. He wanted to speak with her, make sure she was okay after last night, see if she wanted to keep Judith instead, so she would be able to sleep.

He couldn't find her, and it would be strange for him to ask too much about her, even under the guise of his daughter. He finally gave up and took Judith to his cell, tucking her into her make shift crib. Carl popped in long enough to say good night and Rick discreetly asked after Beth. "She's in her cell. I think she went to bed early."

Rick thanked his son and wished him a good night.

He lay in his bed, staring at the bunk above him for hours, listening to the sounds of Judith's breaths in the make shift crib and the creaks and groans of the prison. "Rick?" He almost didn't hear her whispering his name her voice was so quiet and hesitant. He turned his head to look at her. He felt like the breath got knocked out of him. Her hair caught the limited light making it look as if it's glowing. She was also wearing the sleeping shorts that hug her ass just right.

"Hmm?"

"I tried, but I couldn't sleep again. I'm sorry if I woke you." He lifted the covers and she didn't hesitate to close the distance and get under the blankets with him. It didn't escape Rick's notice that she laid just a little bit closer to him. He fought the urge to close the distance between them and wrap her in his arms. It's bad enough he invited her into his bed, even purely platonic so the young woman would be able to sleep. He promised himself he would keep his hands to himself and his dirty thoughts in check.

She came into his cell every night he had Judith. Beth waited until block was quiet to sneak from her cell into his. After the third time of doing so she didn't wait for him to offer to let her sleep in his bed, she gave him just enough time to acknowledge her presence before slipping between the sheets.

Rick knew. Knew he should offer to let her keep his daughter with her every night instead of allowing her into his bed. He didn't, though. He didn't want to give up his nights with his daughter and if he was being completely honest, he didn't want this to end. He enjoyed waking up with her snuggled close and his arms around her, even if it wasn't intentional that they ended up that way. So, he never brought it up.

The cop in him hated himself. The broken man he'd become wanted nothing but more.

One evening Carol offered to keep Judith, giving Rick a free night. On nights he didn't have Judith he always took guard, but that night Daryl and Merle had watch.

Tonight she wouldn't be in his bed. He figured she would go and sit by the playpen in Carol's cell, like she had before he lifted his covers to her. It's still a fight to look her father in the eyes.

"Rick?" He had been drifting in that in between world of awake and asleep. Her voice startled him into a half sitting position. He never expected for her to come to his cell that night- his daughter wasn't there, after all.

"Judith's not here," He grunted.

"I know." He studied her, confused as to why she'd be there, standing in the doorway of his cell if his daughter wasn't there? She saw the confusion etched into his features. "She's with Carol. I was hopin' I could sleep with you anyways?"

He willed his mouth to form the words 'no,' to shake his head and send her back to her own bed. His body betrayed him and he pulled the covers back while nodding. Beth beamed at him and he felt his heart fluttering wildly. She climbed in next to him, shifting until there was no space between their bodies. He wrapped his arms around her, allowing the closeness. Her body molded into the curve of his. It's as if her body was made just for his.

He waited until he was sure she was asleep before climbing out of the bunk. He didn't bother grabbing shoes or his shirt. He grabbed his knife and made his way to the boiler room. Two images battled for dominance in his head. One, the beautiful blonde with the blue eyes that see everything; the other image was the brunette-tall and captivating. His heart kept reaching for the image of the blonde while his head and a tiny piece of his heart reached towards the image of his dead wife.

The image of the blonde, Beth finally prevailed sometime in the early hours of the morning before the sun had begun its upward ascent. The image of his wife appeared once more and he thought 'You had to die for me to see how to live.' He knew that he and his wife's relationship had been deteriorating long before the end of the world and her infidelity. He couldn't blame her for her infidelity, though. He knew she had thought he was long dead. He finally realized that he had stopped truly living long before and her death had woken something in him at the same time something snapped and the moment he saw her image disappear and Beth's appear dominant that she was teaching him how to live again.

He stayed there in the boiler room until he knew the first residents would be awakening and made his way to the common area. Rick waited until the old man came hobbling in, the second person to have gotten up yet. He stood in front of Hershel and stated, "Got thangs to talk about," Hershel nodded once and followed Rick down to the boiler room. Hershel leaned his crutches against the wall and sat on the same stool Rick had sat in so many months ago talking on the phone to those of their rag tag family who perished along their journey.

Rick fell to his knees in front of the old farmer. He told Hershel of the things he felt, the guilt and his hatred for himself. Apologies spilled out of his mouth, unbidden, for the thoughts he had about the elder man's daughter and allowing her into his bed, even if nothing had happened.

He stayed there, on his knees, fighting waves of warring emotions. Kneeling on the floor in front of Hershel, the picture of a tortured man.

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A/N: Let me know what you think. This is my first attempt at Rick/Beth.

I based this song partially on the song Picture Perfect (also the title of this piece) by Escape The Fate. I don't own the song, nor do I own the Walking Dead or anything related to it, but man do I wish I did.


	2. Chapter 2

After Rick finishes speaking Hershel doesn't say anything. He doesn't look up from the floor, waiting for the man to say anything. As the minutes tick away Rick hears Hershel sigh, and finally say, "It's not right. She's just a girl. Your reasoning doesn't make it okay. They're just excuses, Rick. You were a cop. You should know better. Allowing a young girl into your bed? You're playing with fire, son. God doesn't look kindly up the such as this. It cannot and will not happen again. Is this clear?"

Rick finally lifted his head and looked at Hershel. The elder man's eyes were lacking in the warmth they usually held, as with his voice. He sounded distinctly like the man they had first met on the farm, cold and distant. Rick felt himself nodding, agreeing with Hershel. "I'm not forgiving, nor forgetting, but I'll move forward from this. Don't make me regret my choice."

Hershel stood, grabbing his crutches before leaving the boiler room. Rick made no move to get up. Instead he sat there for hours without moving. Sometime later Rick made his way from the boiler room. If you weren't paying close attention you wouldn't notice the way his head hung slightly, or the way his shoulders seem to hunched in. He went past their kitchen/common area, past the cell blocks and straight outside. He skipped lunch to focus on clearing the walker build up on the fences. Then helping Daryl round up the bodies to burn. He stayed outside working until dinner. At dinner he sat with his son, as far from Beth and the Greene's as possible.

For the next week Rick stayed as far from Beth as possible, even asking Carl to ask Beth to keep Judith at night. At the end of the week Rick started to run out of reasons to stay away from her. The longer he stays away from her the more he begins to loathe himself.

Days went by with Rick sleeping less and less. His nights plagued with dreams of Beth. Rick spent every moment of his days working himself to exhaustion in the hopes of being able to fall into a dreamless sleeps. He managed a few hours of sleep each night but morning always found him pacing in the boiler room.

The few times in the day that Rick isn't able to avoid being in the same room as Beth his eyes are drawn to her. He doesn't miss her the looks she directs towards him, a mixture of sadness, confusion and pain. It only fuels his self loathing and hatred of himself. All he wanted was to take her in his arms and ease her pain away. It didn't help his guilt any either, knowing that he was the reason behind her confusion, and the sadness and pain in her came from his pawning his daughter on her like a coward.

As his self loathing and guilt increased his mental state deteriorated more and more. He began to see Lori again and Shane's image began to make an appearance. Before long Shane wasn't just an image in the background, but a voice speaking to him as well, reminding Rick how wrong it is to want the girl, to fall for her. Shane's voice in his head, his face leering at him, helped his resolve to do as Hershel said and stay far away from his daughter's caretaker.

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**A/N:** Because of the response I received for the first chapter, originally meant as a one-shot, I chose to continue the story. I want everyone to be aware that this won't be updated as regularly as Your Choice. Or any of my previous stories, but this will be continued. I have the next couple of chapters mapped out (something I'm trying thanks to beyondmythought-s.) Thank Texasbelle91 for the fact that I finished this and posted it tonight.

This was meant to be a lot longer. I had more planned but it didn't fit nicely into this chapter. It'll be in the next chapter.

Let me know what you guys think of this. Also, go check out my Brick one-shot (Possibly a two-shot if I get some encouragement from ya'll) A Little Time In The Tower, a prompt that I did for Hearts1989. Hope you guys like that one and this chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

Beth spent most of her free time outside basking in the sun. Most days Beth took Judith outside for an hour or two as well, letting the infant get some much needed nutrients. Rick found himself on watch, more often than not, when Beth was out in the prison yard, with or without his daughter.

"Never took ya for a cradle robber. I mean, shit, she ain't much older than MY daughter down there." Shane's ghost appeared, leaning over the guard rail to look down at the tiny blonde and the baby.

"It isn't like that, Shane." Rick's voice was quiet as he spoke.

The other man looked like he was barely holding in his laughter, "Than what is it like? You're fuckin' her, aren't you or are you sayin' your in love with her? Oh, what a crock of shit. Your wife hasn't even been dead long."

Rick's voice was cold when he answered. "Leave Lori out of this. And MY daughter."

"You really think she's yours? My dick was in Lori more than yours had been in the last four years of your marriage." The man looked smug as he leaned against the railing.

Rick opened his mouth to respond but before he could Daryl's head poked up from the trap door. When Rick turned back to speak his mind, Shane was gone. Rick shook his head, as if clearing cobwebs, and looked back to Daryl.

"Ya okay, man? Ya look like ya just seen a ghost." Daryl looked at Rick, eyes laced with concern.

Rick ran his hand over his face, a cleansing motion, "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Your shifts over," Daryl's expression was a comedic combination of confusion and concern as Rick stared at him blankly before leaving the tower and walking past Beth and Judith, not even a glance towards them as he went inside.

Days went by with Rick in a haze, going about his business by rote after his Shane incident. He answered questions, helped out, did his part, but if you were to ask him anything about those days he would only look at you blankly.

"Rick." Snapping fingers in front of his face brought his attention to Daryl and Hershel. "Hey, Rick, ya in there?"

"Huh? Yeah, I'm here." His eyes slowly focused on Daryl's.

"We got some things from that run." Daryl's statement was rather cryptic.

"Farming stuff, things to start at least a vegetable garden...and a pregnant sow" Hershel clarified. "With th e things you're going through, your step down from official leadership, we decided we should begin a way to sustain ourselves. Daryl and the others happened across the pregnant sow,"

"What's a sow?" The only thing that Rick managed to form into a question had himself amazed with his own naivety.

"Female pig," Hershel's face was that of incredulity. "We want you in charge of the farming. With my leg the way it is, I can't man it, but I can teach you what I know."

Rick scratched his beard before nodding slowly.

"Since ya agreed, ya mind helpin' me build somethin' ta keep that pig in?" Daryl's request was more of a "this is your task, you don't have an option," rhetorical question. Daryl nodded sharply before turning on his heels and walking away.

"Maybe this will help you achieve peace." Hershel patted Rick's shoulder and hobbled off.

Rick waited a moment before following Daryl to an empty flat portion of the prison yard. They spent the next six hours building a pig pen. The following day had Rick, Daryl and Carl working the land under Hershel's watchful eye. They worked hard from sunrise until sun down with only a few breaks for food and water. The hoot twelve o clock Georgia sun had Rick and Carl shirtless and Daryl down to a grubby wifebeater, all three dripping sweat when Beth wandered over to them. She handed each of the men a bottle of water and then reached into her pockets and pulled out four of those Green Nature Valley Granola Bars. She handed one to her daddy, then one to Carl and Daryl before going over to Rick.

She held the granola bar in her hand and stopped a foot away from him before holding her hand out with the granola bar. The way her hand covered most of it if he took it he would be forced to make physical contact with her. He tentatively reached out and grasped the granola bar, fingers barely touching hers and he felt that tickle of awareness shoot up his arm. His eyes flitted up to hers. They stared into each other's eyes for a moment before Rick abruptly pulled away from her and went back to his work without a word or looking up again. He worked as if he only had a few moments left to get it all done. Carl , Hershel, and Daryl exchanged a look as Beth turned on her heel and left them to finish their work. Daryl, Carl and Hershel left Rick to his own devices after staring at him for five minutes and being ignored. They would leave him to work out whatever he needed to on the land.

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A/N: What's this? Is Beth getting frustrated with Rick? Is Rick starting to realize something? ;) What's up with Shane?

I'm well on the way with the next chapter. It'll be up on monday. Tomorrow Your Choice will be updated.

Leave me a review, my lovelies. Thanks for sticking by me and my hiatus and slow updates.


	4. Chapter 4

******"The whole value of solitude depends upon one's self; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it." –John Lubbock **

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For the next couple of weeks Rick worked incessantly on getting the ground ready and protected for planting. It wouldn't have taken him nearly so long to get the garden completed if it weren't for the fact that his family and friends forced him to slow down and take breaks Not long after the Beth/Granola bar incident and Shane 'incident', on one of many forced breaks from the garden, Beth cornered Rick in a corridor between the boiler room and the cell block. With no other options left to him he looked into her big, blue eyes, all the bad thoughts about wanting her, the ones he'd been trying to push out of his head jumped to the fore front.

"You're avoiding me." Beth's voice was quiet and matter of fact.

He looked at the ground and then into her eyes. "Yeah, I am." There was no point in lying or denying it, not when his avoidance was clear as day to himself, her and everyone else in the prison. Her eyes welled up with tears. He fought the urge to reach out and wipe them away.

"Avoid me all you want, but don't make your daughter suffer." Beth looked as if she were struggling with what she was trying to say. "I care about you, Rick."

His hand twitched at his side again, he wanted to tell her he cared too. He thought back on his conversation with Hershel, the older man's words coming back to him. It wasn't a forgivable sin, the things that he wanted to do with her, the way he wants to be with her.

He lifted his eyes from hers to the wall somewhere behind her, eyes unfocusing for a moment before noticing the two figures standing on either side of Beth, a few steps behind her, though. That of his dead wife and dead best friend. His thoughts filled with confusion as he tried to figure out why their ghosts were appearing to him.

"Don't fight it, Rick." Lori's eyes were filled with a kind of peace Rick hadn't ever seen in her before, not before her death.

Shane's grin was wicked, "Jail bait. Tell the little thing to keep on caring for my daughter and just go and jack off, buddy. It isn't anything more than sex and you know her daddy will come hobbling off after you. Maybe you should fuck her, just so the rest of your little flock can have some entertainment when her old man finds out."

Lori's figure looked over at Shane, scathingly. "Shut up, Shane." The two figures started bickering back and forth, until Rick shook his head, Shane and Lori vanishing. His attention focused back on Beth. "You and I won't ever work, Beth. It isn't right." He paused before continuing. "I'm sorry."

"At least start taking care of your daughter more. I love her, and it's never been a job to me, and I'll keep taking care of her, but she needs her daddy. Carl needs his dad. An' someday? You'll realize your making a mistake and stop fighting yourself." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek before turning on his heels and walking away, leaving him to stand there and brood.

The amount of time Rick spent with Beth was minimal, only talking and being near her when it concerned his daughter, but he began to care for his daughter again. He and Carl even began to spend time together again, growing closer once again. Rick's mental state didn't get better, however. It stayed the same. Night's when Rick couldn't sleep he began to wander outside instead of to the boiler room. He wandered down and out of the fences; through the hole they cut in it when they first arrived, and out to that little make shift bridge over the small creek.

His wife made appearances to him each night. "Why are you fighting this, Rick? Are you really going to start listening to Shane now, after all these years of being the smarter of the two, and listening to her daddy? He's never made the best decisions, remember back at his farm when he had a barn full of the walkers, jeopardizing us all?" Variations of the same thing were said every time she appeared.

Shane appeared randomly throughout the days, usually when Rick was alone with Judith or Beth happened to be in the room. Always making comments about 'his' daughter and the sweet ass of little Beth Greene and taunting Rick, reminding him that it's nothing more then lust. "You just want to bend her over the table and get your dick wet. Is it worth it all? I thought it was worth it when I fucked your wife, over and over and over again."

Rick wasn't completely oblivious to the fact that one of the Woodbury males started hanging around Beth. Soon they begun to hang out more often than not, Zach and Beth became relatively inseparable. Daryl began to refer to the pair as a "damn romance novel" and Maggie took to grumbling about "they'd better be using protection, at least,"

The couple became the talk of the prison, and the more that Rick heard about the two the angrier and more jealous he became. He wanted to take the boy out to a field somewhere and let him fend for himself, to keep him from what's his.

What's his. Every time his thoughts claimed her as his own he'd storm from the room, dropping every thing he'd been doing and leave. More than once when he came back to the prison and what he'd been doing before his thoughts forced him to try and outrun them, he'd come back with knuckles bruised and bloodied from trying to beat the thoughts away.

One day, Daryl cornered Rick in the guard tower while Rick was on watch. "What the fuck is goin' on wit' ya, man? Ya've been losin' it for months an' I'm fuckin' sick of watchin' ya do this shit ta yerself. Ya love her, don't ya? An' whatever fuckin' shit yer seein' an' been talkin' ta? It ain't fuckin' real, brotha." Daryl's explosion surprised Rick. It would have surprised anyone, for that matter.

Rick opened his mouth to speak but closed it again after a moment.

"I know yer seein' shit that ain't there. I heard some thangs ya've said, when yer talkin' ta whoever ya think is there. It's Shane an' ya wife, ain't it?" Daryl's tone was quiet as he continued to speak, like he was talking to a wounded animal.

Rick nodded, his eyes downcast.

"Y'all think I'm some sort o' moron, redneck idiot but I ain't. I don't say much but I'm fuckin' observant. There was somethin', is somethin' between ya an' Beth ain't there?" Again Rick nodded. "Whatever it is, it was, it's good for ya. When yer near her yer the most lucid an' sane we seen ya in a long time. Hershel, me an' everyone sees it. What're ya gonna do 'bout it?"

Rick thought on everything that Daryl was saying to him. Rick knew that his best friend and his wife were dead. He couldn't bring himself to admit that they were hallucinations or ghosts but with Daryl's words he was forced to come to terms with it. The thing he couldn't come to term with was Beth.

"I can't love her." The words were barely audible.

"Why the fuck not?"

"It isn't right? Thangs with us isn't stuff that can happen. Her daddy forbids it. And I'm not any good for her."

"Ya think ya aren't good for her? Yer a fuckin' idiot," Daryl left Rick alone in the tower after that.

A few weeks after their 'talk' in the tower Daryl and a group of others went on a run. Daryl came back with his head down and went immediately to Beth's cell. Bob was the one to announce to the rest of the group that there was a casualty on the run. Zach was killed. The group took a day to mourn the loss of one of their own before forcing themselves to move on. There wasn't time to dwell on the loss. Beth took it harder than anyone else, but Rick never once saw her shed a tear. He wanted to go to her and pull her into his arms to offer some sort of comfort to her. He fought the urge with every fiber of his being.

He did, however, offer his condolences and offered to keep Judith and let Beth recover from the loss. "I'd like to keep her…I still don't sleep well when she's not there." She looked sheepishly up at Rick. "The nightmares are worse than ever."

Judith slept in Beth's cell every night from then on, regardless of whose turn it was. It was no surprise to anyone when Judith's first words happened to be 'mama', in reference to Beth. Rick wasn't at all surprised and he couldn't find it in himself to be upset about this. She'd stepped up and taken on the role of being a parent to his child when he couldn't, and Judith loved and adored her. He told her as much when she apologized profusely and told him that she'd never once encouraged it.

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A/n: I'm trying to update Your Choice today as well as something else. It's been a little chaotic around my house the last few days so writing hasn't been as easy as I'd like for it to be. Thank you to Mizxmacmanus, beyondmythought-s and texasbelle91 for putting up with all my drama queen moments while writing this week.


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